


This is Permanent

by the_moonmoth



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Post-Season/Series 05 Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-22
Updated: 2015-09-22
Packaged: 2018-04-22 20:08:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4848806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_moonmoth/pseuds/the_moonmoth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cause if there's one thing that I mustn't face/ This is permanent</p>
            </blockquote>





	This is Permanent

**Author's Note:**

> Written for kylathelurker’s prompt, which was Spike + [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=303&v=L9SNJC3YcTQ) ([lyrics](http://songmeanings.com/songs/view/3530822107858879989/)). This might be a songfic, I’m not quite sure what the specs are these days. Set one or two days post-The Gift

_Cause if there's one thing that I mustn't face_  
 _This is permanent_  
 _This is permanent_  
  
Spike came home in the morning. He stood for a moment in the kitchen, looking around blankly and dripping on the tile floor, before shrugging his duster off and limping for the stairs.  
  
His leg was probably still broken from the fall. Felt like it. The Watcher had set it for him, and wrapped it up like a Christmas pressie, but he was a vampire, he could take the pain. Deserved the pain. Kept him focused on something else, at least, something that wasn't...  
  
The pain served its purpose.  
  
The house was empty except for one other, the only real occupant it had left. Hauling himself up the stairs he made his way round to her room. The door was ajar, curtains askew, and inside he could see Dawn sleeping in her bed, all twisted in her clothes.  
  
He stood a while and watched her, absorbed her, the grief seeping from her pores.   
  
The house was quiet, the rain drumming down in a rhythm like the niblet's heartbeat. It had been raining since... Not exactly normal weather for the summer, but Red said the portal had caused a meteorological disruption or some such. It suited him just fine.   
  
Satisfied that the girl was resting, he turned and dragged himself to the room across the way. The door was closed, Dawn had closed it at some point, and that was probably for the best since he was floating through his grey fog of leg-induced agony quite happily without risking the kind of disruption seeing any of that would've brought. Still, he was bone-weary, soaked through, and in the end that seemed as good a place as any to rest – sitting on the carpet with his back against the door.  
  
"Spike?" a quiet voice asked, and for a moment the hairs stood up on the back of his neck, but it was just the youngest Summers, waking from her slumber.  
  
"Yeah, niblet," he said.  
  
"Did you walk here? You're all soggy and... burnt?"  
  
"Sun's still up, behind the clouds," he told her little frowning face. "It's nothing. Vampire, remember? Can take a little discomfort."  
  
She said nothing, and he let his eyes fall closed, let everything in him fall still, because that was the only thing that really seemed to help at all. It was what he was, wasn't it? A corpse, and not so eager to be animated right now.  
  
He’d shut down his senses so successfully that he didn't notice Dawn's return until she was right over him.  
  
"You're an idiot," she said softly, the long curtain of her hair brushing his arms as she daubed his face with something cool, and when she was done, she curled up in his lap like she did it all the time, unaware that her slight weight was enough to jar his leg to torment.  
  
"I'm all wet," he said faintly, summoning the energy to put his arms around her.  
  
"You won't mind me crying on you, then," she replied, and he stroked her hair absently when she did.  
  
A few minutes later, in a voice of quiet, choking sorrow, Dawn asked him, “You wanna know what she said, before she…?”  
  
“No, platelet,” he said softly. “Not just yet.”  
  
She sat back a little and looked at him, big blue eyes watery and shot with pink. Something passed between them, she nodded minutely, and he knew she understood. Tucking her back against him, he knew she understood. She’d closed the door for a reason, after all.  



End file.
